In many industries, it is important to be able to quickly and accurately inventory items. In the past, employees were used to record and log inventory. Now, many industries are utilizing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to reduce the time and cost associated with inventorying items. While RFID tags work well in many facilities, this technology is not always the ideal solution when products are stored in temporary facilities. For example, a retailer during peak seasons may store excess inventory in containers or trucks near the retail facility. To inventory these items, employees take an RFID reader to the containers or trucks to read the RFID tags. This however requires tasking an employee with inventory management duties for temporary facilities. Tasking an employee with inventory management duties increases costs for the retailer as the retailer must either reassign an employee to inventory management or add an additional employee to complete the task. Consequently, a need exists for systems and methods that can easily monitor inventory in temporary facilities without requiring the reassignment, or addition, of employees.
Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. Certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. The terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.